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The Cactus Blossoms
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Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Deerhoof
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Photo credit: Colemine Records
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio
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Eels
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Photo credit: Carol Rothman
Eric Andersen
The Cactus Blossoms, Eels and Deerhoof highlight an eclectic week for live music in Milwaukee.
Thursday, April 18
Wicked Hop 15th Anniversary @ Wicked Hop, 4 p.m.
The Wicked Hop in the Third Ward celebrates its 15th anniversary with a weekend of events and specials. The festivities kick off Thursday with a 4 p.m. “Margarita Social,” featuring a complimentary pig roast with side dishes starting at 5 p.m., followed by music from Wicked Hop mainstays E.Rich, DJ Why B and DJ Madhatter in the Jackalope Lounj at 8 p.m. The celebration continues Friday with a giant, custom ice sculpture and specialty drinks and specials, then with Saturday and Sunday brunch services where the restaurant will be giving away free mimosas every 15 minutes.
The Mother Hips w/ Brian Wurch Band @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
After generating buzz by playing jammy shows at college parties on the California State University Chico campus in the early ’90s, The Mother Hips were signed by Rick Rubins’ American Recordings label while they were still students. Though the breezy rock band’s stint on the label was short, gigs with kindred spirits The Black Crowes and on Blues Travelers’ H.O.R.D.E. festival helped them secure their fanbase, and a quarter century later they continue to tour. Last year the group released its 10th record, Chorus.
Gov’t Mule @ The Pabst Theater, 8 p.m.
In a jam scene filled with prolific musicians, few are more ubiquitous than guitarist Warren Haynes. He began his career in the late ’80s as the fresh blood in a reunited Allman Brothers Band, he expanded his profile in the ’90s with his more overtly jammy and eclectic Southern-rock group Gov’t Mule, and he made his presence further felt on the Bonnaroo circuit with his many solo performances and his long tenure with Phil Lesh and Friends. No matter how many outside commitments he’s taken on, though, Haynes always returns to Gov’t Mule; in 2017, the band released its 11th album, Revolution Come… Revolution Go.
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Friday, April 19
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Deerhoof
Deerhoof w/ Fox Face and L’Resorts @ The Cooperage, 8 p.m.
Lead by singer Satomi Matsuzaki’s disarmingly sweet schoolgirl voice, Deerhoof have cranked out some of the most skewed, noisy art-rock of the last couple decades. Through they began to mellow on a string of poppier, more accessible albums that began with 2003’s Apple O, earning in the process successively bigger audiences, recent albums have returned them to the rawer, heavier sound that made them cult heroes. Their most recent record, 2017’s Mountain Moves, was especially wide ranging, touching on jazz, hip-hop and chamber music, and featuring guests like Juana Molina, Jenn Wasner, Awkwafina and Lætitia Sadier. They’ll share this bill with the Milwaukee punk ensemble Fox Face, and L’Resorts, the new tropical-pop project fronted by Jaill’s Vincent Kircher and Lady Cannon’s Martha Cannon.
The Cactus Blossoms
The Cactus Blossoms w/ Jack Klatt @ The Back Room at Colectivo, 8 p.m.
As their band name suggests, Minneapolis’s Cactus Blossoms are infatuated by the sounds of the old west, particularly the easy country and western swing music of the 1950s and ’60s. After years cutting their teeth on stages around the Midwest, brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum channel the spirit of that era on the duo’s lovely 2016 debut album, You’re Dreaming, which they recorded with another artist who shares their love of mid-century Americana, JD McPherson. Their new sophomore album, Easy Way, updates that sound ever so slightly, while staying true to the retro spirit of the pre-color TV days.
Photo credit: Carol Rothman
Eric Andersen
Eric Andersen ft. Scarlet Rivera and Cheryl Prashker w/ Matthew Davies @ Anodyne Coffee, 8 p.m.
A quintessential songwriter’s songwriter, Eric Andersen cut his teeth performing in Greenwich Village in the early ’60s, where he became a fixture of the folk scene. Over the years, his songs have been covered by Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, The Grateful Dead, Gillian Welch, The Blues Project and Bob Dylan, who released his version of Andersen’s “Thirsty Boots” as a Record Store Day single. Along the way, Andersen has also co-written songs with greats like Lou Reed, Bob Weir and Townes Van Zandt. Though he continues to record frequently, he rarely tours far beyond his home in the Netherlands.
Saturday, April 20
Alice in Chains w/ City and Colour @ The Rave, 8 p.m.
Though some fans found it inherently distasteful that metal-leaning grunge rockers Alice in Chains carried on after the 2002 death of Layne Staley, replacing him with soundalike William DuVall, the bulk don’t seem to mind. Guitarist Jerry Cantrell, after all, had been one of the band’s core songwriters, and 2009’s Black Gives Way to Blue found him in fine form, providing 11 moody, convincingly bleak songs in the spirit of the band’s heyday output. They followed it up in 2013 with The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, which featured some big, catchy songs from Cantrell. Their most recent effort, 2018’s Rainier Fog, debuted at number one on Billboard’s rock charts and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Album.
Monday, April 22
David Dondero w/ Shoot Down the Moon and Ian Olvera @ Cactus Club, 8 p.m.
A musician whose reach far exceeded his sales, David Dondero has inspired plenty of political songwriters over the last 15 years, first as a member of the political folk-punk band This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, then as a solo folk songwriter. Among those who were moved by Dondero’s shambolic, lo-fi folk was Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, who signed Dondero to his Team Love label in 2005. Since leaving Team Love, Dondero has scaled back the relative bells and whistles of his three records for that label, returning to the all-acoustic, live-from-a-cardboard-box sound of his early recordings. In 2013, he released the career retrospective Golden Hits Vol. 1 and an album of elegant new material, This Guitar, which he funded through Kickstarter. He released his latest album Inside the Cat’s Eye in 2017.
Tuesday, April 23
Photo credit: Colemine Records
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio
Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio w/ The Michael Arnold Three @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.
The Seattle-based Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio have slowly expanded their circle since forming in 2015. After a year holding down a residency at Seattle’s Royal Room, they began branching out with short tours around the Pacific Northwest and West Coast, while drawing more than three million views for their soulful, funky set broadcast by KEXP at the Upstream Music Festival. They re-released their 2016 debut album last year to a wider audience on Colemine Records. The band will share this show with a homegrown organ trio: Milwaukee’s The Michael Arnold Three, which features guitarist Michael Arnold, organist Dan Schneck and drummer Jeremy Kuzniar.
Wednesday, April 24
Eels
Eels w/ Inspector Cluzo @ Turner Hall Ballroom, 7:30 p.m.
In the years since their grungy 1996 breakout album Beautiful Freak and its moving, death-obsessed follow-up Electro-Shock Blues in 1998, Eels abandoned any pretenses of being a normal band and instead became an outlet for singer/songwriter Mark Oliver Everett to do basically whatever he wanted. The band’s lone constant, he’s bounced between blistering alternative rock, odd psychedelic rock and regal orchestral pop on the band’s recent albums, and he touches on a little bit of all of that on his most recent effort, 2018’s The Deconstruction, which followed an uncharacteristic four-year hiatus.
